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Vernon high school students protest new principal selection

Submitted Photo _
Approximately 500 Vernon Township High School students left class and congregated on the football field Thursday morning (May 18) to protest the selection of Pauline Anderson as the new high school principal. The board recently appointed Anderson, currently principal at Glen Meadow Middle School, as the new high school principal over Nancy LoPresti, who currently is employed as an assistant principal at the high school.

Submitted photo —
Approximately 500 students left class and congregated on the football field Thursday morning (May 18) to protest the selection of Pauline Anderson as the new high school principal. The board recently appointed Anderson, currently principal at Glen Meadow Middle School, as the new high school principal over Nancy LoPresti, who currently is employed as an assistant principal at the high school.

VERNON -- Students at Vernon Township High School staged a peaceful walkout Thursday morning to protest the Board of Education's appointment of Pauline Anderson as the school's new principal.

Anderson, who currently serves as principal at Glen Meadow Middle School, was appointed May 4 to take the place of the high school's current principal, Drew Krause, who is leaving at the end of June for a higher-paying job in Bernards Township.

A group of students who favored the appointment of the high school's current assistant principal, Nancy LoPresti, to the principal's position subsequently began making plans for Thursday's walkout, which came to the attention of the school administration earlier this week but was allowed to proceed anyway.

Zoe Heath, a 17-year-old junior who helped organize the walkout, said Thursday afternoon that she and several other students were planning to formally air their grievances before the full Board of Education at its meeting Thursday night.

The board's appointment of Anderson earlier this month was done at the recommendation of Schools Superintendent Arthur DiBenedetto and came in an 8-1 vote, with all the board's members except Board President David Zweier voting to approve the appointment.

Prior to the Board of Education's vote to appoint Anderson, a nine-member advisory committee — which included board members Bradley Sparta and Cynthia Auberger, along with DiBenedetto and a principal, three supervisors, and two teachers — had been put together by the board to provide input into the principal selection process.

DiBenedetto, in a phone conversation prior to Thursday night's board meeting, acknowledged that the committee ultimately voted 6-2 in an informal straw poll -- from which he abstained -- in favor of offering the position to LoPresti, but he emphasized that the committee was advisory only and that its decisions were not binding on his recommendation or on the board's final decision.

DiBenedetto said Anderson's salary as principal has not yet been determined but is expected to be set at or near her current salary of approximately $130,000.

He said he had since met with LoPresti and said "I understand she (LoPresti) was upset, as she has a right to be." He said he had encouraged LoPresti, whose current position as assistant principal at the high school is not affected by the decision, to consider applying for the Glen Meadow principal opening, for which the school district has begun advertising.

In additional comments following Thursday morning's walkout, DiBenedetto said he had met personally with several student leaders earlier this week after learning of their plans and attempted to address their concerns while providing them the most accurate information possible.

He indicated he agreed to allow the gathering to go on as planned with the proviso that it be peaceful and limited to a two-hour window from 8 to 10 a.m. Approximately 560 students, or a little more than half the student body, participated in the gathering.

"The walkout went on a bit longer than I would have liked, but I told the students they have a right to protest and promised them they would not be disciplined -- but this is now done," DiBenedetto said. "Any more protests after today will be disciplined."

Among the students who attended the gathering, several were seen sporting protest signs, one of which read: "Well-behaved teenagers seldom make history."

Others, taking their cues from the hard-fought 2016 presidential election campaign and its aftermath, carried signs reading "Not my principal" with a social media hashtag #ProLoPresti.

A school official, who asked not to be named, spoke with the New Jersey Herald afterward and alleged that a few students also had signs supporting the appointment of Anderson, but that information could not immediately be verified.

Not all of the students were actively protesting, however: On a day when temperatures reached a summer-like 91 degrees, photos taken at the event showed some boys walking around shirtless while other students were seen sitting leisurely in small groups on beach towels or gathered under portable tents. A few even brought lawn chairs.

"I'm not sure how many were out there protesting or if some of them were out there because it was a beautiful day," DiBenedetto said. "Some of them were tossing Frisbees around."

But, he said, "The kids were gentlemen and ladies, and everything was cleaned up afterward. I believe we were respectful to them, and they were respectful toward us."

It was unclear how many students were planning to address the Board of Education Thursday night, but Heath -- the 17-year-old junior -- said she planned on doing so.

Heath suggested that as a middle school principal with no administrative experience at the high school level, Anderson had a discipline approach that was less suited to the high school level and was less prepared to lead students in grades 9-12 than LoPresti.

But she said her passion regarding the issue was based more on her personal experience with LoPresti and the support she had received from her in founding the high school's Gay-Straight Alliance, of which she serves as president in addition to being co-president of the school's Model United Nations club and an active member of its theater department.

"The morale here has been low for quite a while, and she (LoPresti) has touched the lives of a lot of students personally," Heath said. "She's definitely one of those administrators who you know cares and whose door is always open."

Heath said her parents have offered her their support and that several teachers have privately done so as well, but she emphasized that she and the other students protesting the board's decision all did so of their own volition.

"All of us have done this completely on our own," Heath said. "Nobody put us up to it."

She acknowledged that if, as expected, Anderson takes the reins as the high school principal for the 2017-18 school year, it could make for an awkward introduction come September, but she said she was confident they would be able to get past it.

"I'm a very respectful student and wouldn't hold any malice toward her because it's not her fault that she was chosen over Ms. LoPresti, so hopefully she (Anderson) will like me again, but we just feel Ms. LoPresti is the better choice," Heath said.

Eric Obernauer can also be contacted on Twitter: @EricObernNJH or by phone at 973-383-1213.

Editor's Note: This article has been updated to correct the members of the nine-member advisory committee put together by the board to provide input into the principal selection process. The committee was comprised of board members Bradley Sparta and Cynthia Auberger, along with DiBenedetto and a principal, three supervisors, and two teachers.